soa readiness assessment, a new method

Ali Mirarab et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com

ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 8( Version 2), August 2014, pp.134-142

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Soa Readiness Assessment, a New Method

Ali Mirarab, Najmeh Ghasemi Fard and Abdol Reza Rasouli Kenari Electrical and Computer Department, Qom University of Technology, Qom, Iran

Abstract One of the initial steps to implement Service Oriented Architecture is organization's readiness assessment for

acceptance and utilization of this architecture. Organization’s readiness assessment is a method that taking

advantages of it investigated various organization aspects and each part of organization preparation for

acceptance of service oriented architecture can be measured. Because the implementation of Service Oriented

Architecture is a key and large scale project in organizations and organizations are faced with many problems in

SOA adoption process. Taking advantage of organization readiness assessment to assess organization readiness

is necessary to implement Service Oriented Architecture. In this paper a review on SOA and its adoption and

implementation challenges performed. Some researches and tools for service oriented architecture readiness

assessment are introduced. A new method for SOA readiness assessment is proposed. Main approach of this

method is facilitating SOA implementation by assessing organization readiness to implement this architecture in

order to decrease spending time and resources. Most important features of proposed method are that it is based

on standards and principles of readiness assessment to implement Service Oriented Architecture and consist

comprehensive view on the identified factors to assess organizational readiness.

Keywords: service oriented architecture, readiness assessment, SOA governance, SOA adoption, SOA

implementation.

I. Introduction Due to the rapid development of information

and communication technologies, organization

requirements are also increasing rapidly. Rapid

changes in the business environment and the

ubiquitous presence of the Internet in these areas,

leads to the necessity of using an independent

platform, web-based technologies and establish

standards for integration between systems.

Appropriate solution to meet these requirements is

using appropriate software architecture in

development and implementation of such systems.

Service Oriented Architecture is not new concept and

has existed since 90s, but what is new is the ability to

implement and realize it. One of the initial steps to

implement Service Oriented Architecture is

organization's readiness assessment for acceptance

and utilization of this architecture. Organization’s

readiness assessment is a method that taking

advantages of it investigated various organization

aspects and each part of organization preparation for

acceptance of service oriented architecture can be

measured. Because the implementation of Service

Oriented Architecture is a key and large scale project

in organizations and organizations are faced with

many problems in SOA adoption process, and

probably despite spending too much time and

resources and many investments make in the field of

service oriented architecture, deviated from right

path and fail; Taking advantage of this tool to assess

organization readiness is necessary to implement

Service Oriented Architecture.

In this paper, service oriented architecture and

its adoption challenges in organization are studied

and organization readiness assessment is reviewed.

Some tools and methods for organization readiness

assessment are investigated and a new method for

SOA readiness assessment is proposed. Main goal of

this research is proposing a method which an

organization's readiness for service oriented

architecture implementation can be assessed.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 defines

service oriented architecture and its adoption and

implementation challenges. Section 3 reviews SOA

readiness assessment for service oriented architecture

implementation. Section 4 presents a literature

review of existing SOA readiness assessment

methods and tools. Our new method for SOA

readiness assessment are presented in Section 5.

Section 6 concludes the paper.

II. What is SOA? Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is defined

in a number of ways, but not all definitions are equal,

and not all definitions are complete. While there is

no standard or official definition for SOA, we found

that IBM’s definition of SOA (given below) an

adequate one in the context of this section:

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a business-

centric IT architectural approach that supports

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS


ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 8( Version 1), August 2014, pp.

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integrating your business as linked, repeatable

business tasks, or services.

Bieberstein, Bose, Fiammante, Jones & Shah [2]

define SOA in the following way:

A service-oriented architecture is a framework for

integrating business processes and supporting IT

infrastructure as secure, standardized components

(services) that can be reused and combined to

address changing business priorities.

2.1 SOA adoption problems

The adoption of service-oriented principles is a

complex process with the aim of creating a service

oriented architecture. It consists of many projects

and has a scope of many years. When adopting SOA,

different areas inside a company are affected [3]:

organizational structure, people, workflow processes

and technologies. Challenges in SOA adoption can

be classified and put into three categories. These

three categories are People, Process, and Technology

that shown if fig 1 [4].

Figure 1. SOA adoption challenges [4]

2.2 SOA implementation challenges

While implementing a service-oriented architecture,

a company faces up to eight key challenges [5].

Service identification. What is a service? What is the

business functionality to be provided by a given

service? What is the optimal granularity of the

service?

- Service location. Where should a service be

located within the enterprise?

- Service domain definition. How should services

be grouped together into logical domains?

- Service packaging. How is existing functionality

within legacy mainframe systems to be re-

engineered or wrapped into reusable services?

- Service orchestration. How are composite

services to be orchestrated?

- Service routing. How are requests from service

consumers to be routed to the appropriate

service and/or service domain?

- Service governance. How will the enterprise

exercise governance processes to administer and

maintain services?

- Service messaging standards adoption. How will

the enterprise adopt a given standard

consistently?

III. Organization readiness assessment

for SOA implementation

In this method, organization readiness in

managerial and organizational, human resources,

structure, process, technical, infrastructure and

cultural aspects for service-oriented architecture

adoption is determined. Using the output of this tool

can identify imperfections in the field of architecture

adoption and plan and took action to fix them.

Implementing Service-Oriented Architecture requires

significant costs and time and affects different

aspects of organization. This architecture has been

some impact on organizations that provided the

growth and development of some organizations in

the business and for some organizations has

bankruptcy and the business end. Hence, readiness

assessment studies before implementation

architecture is very important and is raised as a key

success factor for the system implementation. In this




regard, it is essential that organizations before any

action to implement Service Oriented Architecture

perform assessment and feasibility study in order to

implement this architecture that the architecture has

been implemented based on the current facts and

consist organization possibilities and constraints.

During the readiness assessment studies,

Prerequisites for the successful implementation is

determined and organization readiness to implement

the architecture is assessed. Service Oriented

Architecture readiness assessment studies by primary

data collection, create research framework, collect

the required detailed data and data analysis is done

using standard management tools. The output of this

study and analysis express organization readiness to

adopt service oriented architecture. Also challenges,

problems and key success factors in the architecture

implementation is determined at this stage. In

addition, some solutions for improving organization

state of for the adoption of the architecture is

presented.

IV. Related works In this section some related works are surveyed.

4.1. IBM SOA readiness assessment tool [6]: This

tool presents you with a short series of questions

based on IBM's SOA maturity model to assess your

SOA capabilities and take stock of where you are

and where you would like to go with SOA. This tool

consists 16 question in 4 categories: process,

infrastructure, application and architecture which

each category contains 4 question.

4.2. Oracle SOA readiness assessment tool [7]:

Oracle have just made available an online SOA

Readiness Assessment, It asks you a few questions

focused around the 8 areas in Oracles SOA maturity

model as mentioned bellow and then provides a

report.

- Business & Strategy: Contains capabilities that

provide the high-level constructs that allow the

SOA initiative to proceed. This includes such

things as business motivation, expected benefits,

guiding principles, expected costs, funding

model, etc.

- Architecture: Contains capabilities concerning

the definitions of the overall architecture and

guidelines for various practitioners to ensure

adherence to the architecture.

- Infrastructure: Contains capabilities

concerning the service infrastructure and tools

that provide the technical foundation for the

SOA initiative.

- Information: Contains capabilities concerning

the information aspects of SOA, e.g., providing

Information as a Service (IAAS). This includes

shared data models, message formats and

schemas, master data management, content

management, etc.

- Projects, Portfolios & Services: Contains

capabilities concerning the planning and

building of services and the service usage

guidelines of service consumers.

- Operations, Administration & Management:

Contains capabilities concerning the post

deployment aspects of solutions based on a

service-oriented architecture.

- Organization: Contains capabilities concerning

the development of corporate competency

around SOA including the organizational

structure and skills development.

- Governance: Contains capabilities concerning

the governance structures and processes that

support and guide the SOA efforts. Maturity and

adoption of adequate amount of governance is a

leading factor of the overall SOA success.

The assessment is obviously very lightweight,

but it is worth taking for several reasons.

- It gives you some reasonable suggestions about

what steps to take next.

- It provides an initial SOA maturity assessment

and compares it to your peers.

- It provides links to a number of helpful

resources inside and outside Oracle.

4.3. Sandro Geriü et al. [8] analyses necessary set of

prerequisites which should be fulfil by organization

attempting to implement SOA. The authors

mentioned Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a

set of principles for designing extensible, federated

and interoperable services, and it represents a new

evolutional spiral in the program-applications

development and in the evolution of the information

systems concept. Since SOA implementation

requests significant organizational changes such set

of prerequisites should comprise not only from

technical prerequisites but should take into account

data architecture, system integration and

compatibility, security and legislative requirements,

business requirements and organizational

prerequisites. This set of prerequisites can be defined

as a Service-Oriented Architecture Maturity Model

and used to evaluate the possibility for successful

utilization of SOA in specific organization. The

author also concludes that besides the technical

standards and solutions that are necessary for SOA

implementation, an organization has to full field a set

of different criteria in order for SOA implementation

to be successful. It is not easy to define a unique set

of criterion, or prerequisites that organization has to

full field in order to successfully implement SOA.

The ability for organization to adopt service oriented

architecture can be estimated by service oriented

architectures maturity models (SOAMM). Different

service-oriented architecture maturity models exists,



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and analysis that we conducted in this paper has

shown that they define very similar maturity levels,

and a very similar set of prerequisites that

organization has to achieve in order to increase its

maturity level in the context of SOA implementation.

Authors based on that conclude that is possible to

define a basic set of criteria, as a necessary set of

prerequisites that an organization has to establish if it

wants to establish successful SOA implementation.

Which criteria should be used in this set, and what

are the differences and additional prerequisites for

some specific domains (e.g. public administration,

manufacturing, retail, financial institutions, etc.) are

the elements of further research in this area.

4.4. Julian Eckert et al. [9] mentioned currently, the

realization of Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)

implementation in the German banking industry

varies, whereas some banks are in the adoption phase

and others are already in the SOA operations phase.

This paper focuses on specific implications

concerning the SOA readiness and the SOA maturity

of German banks as well as the role of SOA in the

context of M&A scenarios. In particular, key

findings of the SOA readiness and maturity case

study within the German banking industry are

presented and discussed. This paper presents the

findings of the SOA readiness and maturity case

study within the German banking industry. It builds

on an already established research framework

regarding SOA maturity and SOA readiness. The

evaluation of the conducted interviews has shown

that SOA readiness is already present in the German

banking industry. On the other hand, the maturity

levels of SOAs in the observed German banks are

very similar to each other: a basic technical platform

is established, but a holistic and mature enterprise

SOA including a well-established SOA Life Cycle

Management could not be found – therefore, all

investigated banks are assigned to maturity level two,

making progress towards level three. A major issue

which hinders higher maturity levels is the missing

alignment between management and IT. This results

in weak management support in topics that regard

SOA and too much responsibility for the IT

departments. This issue leads to SOAs which are not

process-oriented, since the IT has the responsibility

but not the opportunity to align SOA on the business

processes, because only poor documentation is

available. On the other hand, the business is almost

always project-driven only and does not offer

business process support. As a result of this issue the

granularity of alignment activities represents the

independent variable, whereas the maturity of the

service landscape is the dependent variable. This

model focuses on the maturity of the services and not

on the entire SOA, since, as we found out, the

functionality of the services gains the highest

importance for the interviewees. An initial strategic

alignment is required to create a trivial service

environment. If additional roles are defined and the

organization structure is redesigned according to

SOA, the service landscape is able to support the

processes. If and only if the business side of the

enterprise both creates process documentations and

supports the IT by implementing these processes, a

process-oriented service environment can be created.

The case study shows that SOA in German banks has

some room for further improvements.

4.5. Tor-Morten Grønli et al. [10] proposed recent

research suggests that companies are exploiting the

agile and innovative potential of SOA, but are

regarding it as a technical issue. In this article we

present and discuss a very successful SOA

implementation. We conducted an in-depth case

study at an international airline company. Authors

presented and investigated a very successful case of

SOA implementation, which enabled the company to

innovate new services. They found that a flexible IT

architecture provides resources on which the

business people may innovate. Three success factors

were identified by analyzing the relationship

between service oriented architecture and the

development of new business services in the

company: A comprehensive implementation of an

enterprise service bus, with the encapsulation of

components at the different levels enables IT and

business developers to innovate new series quickly.

Second, as long as the architecture is kept clean (i.e.

adhering to the principles of the SOA), the new

services on the SOA not only increase the income of

the company, but also increase the spectrum of

possibilities for new innovations. Third, the

architecture should also govern the organization of

developers. We find that the best way to achieve this

is to allocate one team per layer in the architecture.

V. Research structure First researches was conducted on the SOA and

then with a review on previous research in the field

of organization readiness assessment for Service

Oriented Architecture implementation, best methods

of organization readiness assessment identified and

were placed as basis of this research. Then by using

investigations and basic methods, the main factors to

assess the readiness of the organization identified

and then for each key factor, sub-factors identified

and the most appropriate and best factor that have

more comprehensive and more common were

selected. In the selection criteria tried to consider all

aspects of organization that have role in service

oriented architecture implementation. After

determining factors each factor were weighted.

Based on major and minor determined factors, for

each sub-index, a question was raised and after




various studies and surveys a fairly comprehensive

questionnaire is designed. Cochran's formula to

obtain the optimal number of questionnaires were

used. Then, designed questionnaire were distributed

based on calculated number. In order to assess

organization readiness a formula was designed. After

collecting the questionnaires, using the set out

formula to analyze answers and draw conclusions

from them. Research structure shown in Fig 2

Figure 2. Research structure

5.1. Questionnaire

This research questionnaire consisted of 48 items. We use Likert scale in order to scaling responses. The format

of our five-level Likert item shown in table 1.

Table 1. Questionaries’ scoring

Very low Low Middle High Very high

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

In this study, in order to ensure the validity of

data collection tool questionnaire information was

shared to the experts and according to their views

necessary changes were applied.

In this study, Cronbach's alpha was used, so the

researcher to evaluate the reliability of the

questionnaire a sample of 40 sets of questionnaires

have been distributed among the statical population

and by using SPSS software Cronbach's alpha was

measured and 0.978 was obtained for the

questionnaire. Since the reliability of tool is higher

than 0.70 we can trust the results of the study and

collected data.

Table 2. Reliability test and Cronbach's alpha for

the sample

Cronbach's

Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha

Based on

Standardized Items N of Items

.978 .978 47

5.2. Statistical population:

The research has included various managers and

experts of IT organizations in Iran. Questionnaires

were distributed among the people familiar with

Service Oriented Architecture. In this research

Cochran's formula used to obtain the optimal number

of questionnaires.

5.3. Data analysis and assumptions testing method:

Data analysis was done Based on the descriptive

statistics by using SPSS software. Data from the

research tool entered into SPSS statistical program,

based on the type and purpose of the research,

appropriate statistical tests and analyzes were

performed.

VI. New method process This section describes the process of new

method for SOA readiness assessment.

6.1. Factors determination

According to the studies We made base IBM

and Oracle organization readiness assessment

methods and “Prerequisites for Successful

Implementation of Service-Oriented [8]”, “Readiness

and Maturity of Service-oriented Architectures in the

German Banking Industry [9]”, “A Successful

Implementation of Service Oriented Architecture



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[10]” and then initial factors identified based on

these researches. Six main factors shown in Fig 3.

Figure 3. Main Factors

Initial factors consists all main factors and sub

factors shown as follow:

Integration

F1. Organization’s application integration

F2. Harmonized and coordinated information

flows

F3. Dynamic Architecture

F4. Integration across the organization

F5. Connect internal services with external

services

F6. Orchestration Service to manage processes

F7. Supply chain integration

F8. Connection between business processes and

services

F9. Integration across business functions

F10. Support of heterogeneity and distributed

systems

F11. Process Integration

F12. Organization’s use of a services layer to

facilitate shareable services

F13. Organization’s degree of flexibility for service

oriented computing

Technical Infrastructure

F14. Layered Architecture

F15. Proprietary point to point connections

F16. Enterprise wide IT transformation

F17. Organization ability to reuse existing

applications

F18. Organization existing Service-oriented

capabilities

F19. Infrastructure ability to support service

oriented computing

F20. Organization’s ability to create new

applications from existing services

F21. Architecture ability to support advanced

interactions and connections between

applications

F22. Finely tuning of infrastructure

Organizational support

F23. Start of changing corporate culture

F24. Organization’s experience in SOA

F25. Developers learn service development skills

F26. Service oriented business view of IT

F27. Organization and employees support of new

functionality

F28. Business stakeholders’ current perception of

SOA

Governance and Management

F29. Modular exposure of functionality

F30. Self-organized enterprise

F31. Automated business processes

F32. Extend business processes to external

organizations

F33. Specify policies for SOA

F34. Specify policies for creation or modification

of business processes

F35. Governance using policies and service

definitions

F36. Organization degree to measure business

process performance and react to the data

Security

F37. Implement cross enterprise security

F38. Enterprise infrastructure’s security capabilities

F39. Organization strategy for deploying security

around service oriented solutions

F40. Application access security

F41. Application security

Use of Standards

F42. Communications through interfaces and

contracts

F43. Specify technology standards for SOA

F44. Proprietary protocols and glue code is

replaced by standards

F45. Organization’s technique for identification

and design of services

F46. Degree of using SOA governance model

F47. Organization’s development technique to

expose services

6.2. Feature selection After initial organization readiness assessment

factors identification, In order to select key factors

from initial defined factors excluded indications that

was not a major influence in organization readiness

assessment, the feature selection algorithm was used

which exist in SPSS Modeler software. For this, after

entering data set to software and selecting filters and

set special settings, Feature Selection and CHAID




algorithm was used. Key factors after feature selection shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Key Factors after feature selection

6.3. Weighting factors:

After selection features each of them were

weighted that weights is based on the principles of

research and respondents.

After key factors selection stage, each major and

minor factors was weighted based on basic

researches and respondents answers. Factors with

weight shown in table

Factor Weight

Integration

F2

F6

F10

F11

F12

F13

3

4

1

2

5

2

3


F16

F3

F17

F18

F19

F21

4

4

3

2

5

3

1

Organizational Support

F23

F24

F26

F27

F28

5

3

1

5

2

4


F30

F33

F34

F35

F36

2

1

4

3

5

2

Security

F37

F38

F39

F40

1

4

2

3

1

Use of Standards

F43

F45

F46

F47

3

4

2

3

1

6.4. Readiness assessment calculation

To calculate the organization's readiness to

implement service-oriented architecture, a formula

was designed which shown in follow:

(1)

Qi: Points each response based on Table 3.

Wi: each sub-index weight

Wj: each main-index weight

6.5. Proposed method advantages:

- Based on standards and principles of assessment

of readiness to implement Service Oriented

Architecture

- Comprehensive view on the identified factors to

assess organizational readiness

- Business process used as the original source of

this method can assess organization readiness

- According to the characteristics and challenges

of organizations as the basis of the proposed

method.

VII. Case Study In order to perform the actual evaluation and

assessment of readiness for implementing service-

oriented architecture an Iranian organization

considered as case study and by using questionnaire

responses, organization readiness was assessed.



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Table 3. Points of case study for Integration Factor and it's sub-factor

Integration

Question Group Weight Factor Weight Point

1

3

4 0.4

2 1 0.2

3 2 0.2

4 5 0.4

5 2 0.2

6 3 0.2

Total 1.6

Table 4. Points of case study for Technical Infrastructure Factor and its sub-factor


Question Group Weight Factor Weight Point

1

4

4 0.2

2 2 0.4

3 5 0.2

4 3 0.2

5 1 0.2

Total 1.2

Table 5. Points of case study for Organizational Support Factor and its sub-factor

Organizational Support

Question Group Weight Factor Weight Earn value

1

5

3 0.2

2 1 0.4

3 5 0.4

4 2 0.2

5 4 0.2

Total 1.6

Table 6. Points of case study for Governance and Management Factor and its sub-factor



1

2

1 0.4

2 4 0.4

3 3 0.2

4 5 0.4

5 2 0.4

Total 1

Table 7. Points of case study for Security Factor and its sub-factor

Security


1

1

4 0.8

2 1 0.6

3 2 0.4

4 5 0.8

Total 2.6

Table 8. Points of case study for Use of Standards Factor and its sub-factor

Use of Standards


1

3

4 0.2

2 2 0.2

3 3 0.2

4 1 0.2

Total 0.8

Based on our formula readiness percentage of this organization is 37%.




VIII. Conclusions Service Oriented Architecture is not new

concept and has existed since 90s, but what is new is

the ability to implement and realize it. One of the

initial steps to implement Service Oriented

Architecture is organization's readiness assessment

for acceptance and utilization of this architecture. In

this paper, existing method and tools to assess

organization readiness identified and explained. Also

in this paper, service oriented architecture and its

adoption and implementations challenges in

organization was explained and organization

readiness assessment reviewed.

We introduce a new method for organization

readiness assessment. In order to do this review on

previous research in the field of organization

readiness assessment for Service Oriented

Architecture implementation was conducted and best

methods of organization readiness assessment

identified and were placed as basis of this research.

Then by using investigations and basic methods, the

main factors to assess the readiness of the

organization identified and then for each key factor,

sub-factors identified and the most appropriate and

best factor that have more comprehensive and more

common were selected. After determining factors,

each factor were weighted. In order to assess

organization readiness a formula was designed. After

collecting the questionnaires, using the set out

formula to analyze answers and draw conclusions

from them. Main approach of this method is

facilitating SOA implementation by assessing

organization readiness to implement this architecture

in order to decrease spending time and resources.

References

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Mohammad Sharifi, "Issues in

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Ali Mirarab Master Degree of Information

Technology who research on IT fields especially on

Cloud Computing and Security Solutions. BA has

passed in Tehran University in field of IT

engineering.